Carlo Domeniconi (IT)

About

Carlo Domeniconi has spent decades building a catalog that refuses to stay in one place. The Italian guitarist and composer is best known for Koyunbaba, a suite he wrote in 1985 to 1986 that draws on Turkish musical traditions and paints a picture of a coastal bay on the Aegean Sea once associated with a Turkish saint. By the 1990s it had become one of the most frequently performed and recorded solo guitar pieces around, taken up by players well beyond Domeniconi himself. His fascination with Turkish music goes deep, stretching back to the 1960s and including a period living in Istanbul where he set up the first classical guitar course at the Istanbul University State Conservatory. Beyond Turkey, his compositions pull from Indian, Brazilian, and other traditions, a range that shows up across his catalogue of more than 150 published works. A career highlight is the Concerto di Berlinbul for bağlama, guitar, and chamber orchestra, premiered at the Berliner Philharmonie in 1987.